A Windisch surprise

Ian Grant · Oct 7, 2013

Yesterday at a Camera fair I picked up a copy of Hans Windisch's famous book, an English copy of "DIE NEUE PHOTO.SCHULE, Die Technik"

This is the cover of my 1944 German language version, I have a 1938 English language copy as well, What made yesterdays purchase interesting was it was a 1956 version and refered to Ilford Phenidone developers and also pointed out that Kodak had copied one of Windisch's developers for D25.

So my latest Windisch book is called "The Manual of Modern Photography - Technique" and it's well written.

Ian

Shawn Dougherty · Oct 7, 2013

Ian,
In my reading on D23 diluted 1+3 (which I have been using with 4x5 lately) I came across a few people stating that D23 at that dilution is similar to a Windisch developer. I wonder if you know which one and what the actual formula is?
Thanks!
Shawn

Ian Grant · Oct 8, 2013

Shawn, Windisch claims that D25 is derived from his W665 formula but without the Ortho-phenylene diamine.

W665

[TABLE="width: 500"]

Sodium Sulphite (anhyd)

90g

Ortho-phenylene diamine

12g

Metol

12g

Sodium metabisulphite

10g

Water to

1 litre

[/TABLE]

Windisch's own developer similar to D25 is:

W22

[TABLE="width: 500"]

Sodium Sulphite (anhyd)

65g

93g

Metol

8g

11.4g

Sodium Metabisulphite

7g

10g

Water to

700ml

1 litre

[/TABLE]

Windisch published W22 to make 700ml of developer, I've added the figures to make 1 litre.

This one is also listed:

Metol Sulphite developer

[TABLE="width: 500"]

Sodium Sulphite (anhyd)

50g

Metol

2.5g

Water to

1 litre

[/TABLE]

It pre-dates the Kodak D23 formula. It's in both my earlier copies of "DIE NEUE PHOTO.SCHULE, Die Technik"

Ian

Shawn Dougherty · Oct 8, 2013

Thank you, Ian. That 3rd one is pretty close to diluted D23. Somewhere between 1+2 and 1+3, though a bit heavy on the Sodium Sulphite. Interesting that it is in your 1938 copy as well. Thanks again for posting these.

MDR · Oct 8, 2013

Ian I don't know when D23 was introduced but after WWII most German Patents were voided as War reparation and many US companies benefited quiet a lot from these reparations as did the US economy.

Ian Grant · Oct 8, 2013

D23 & D25 were introduced in a Kodak Research document by Henn & Crabtree in 1944.

Ian

MDR · Oct 8, 2013

Thank you. Again in Wartime the enemies copyright didn't really count. And as you very well know Kodak wasn't as big an innovator as we are led to believe. Like any Big company they mostly bought innovation (T-grain etc... are an exception to the rule).

Ian Grant · Oct 8, 2013

MDR said:
Thank you. Again in Wartime the enemies copyright didn't really count. And as you very well know Kodak wasn't as big an innovator as we are led to believe. Like any Big company they mostly bought innovation (T-grain etc... are an exception to the rule).

Kodak lagged way behind in terms of their B&W developers and films, they only caught up and went past their competitors in the 1980's. D76 and some other well known Kodak developers evolved from the Wellington & Ward buffered borax developer.

Ian

MDR · Oct 8, 2013

Yet we are led to believe that Kodak was the great innovator without whom modern film photography would not exist

AgX · Oct 8, 2013

MDR said:
...but after WWII most German Patents were voided as War reparation and many US companies benefited quiet a lot from these reparations as did the US economy.

Even patents of so-called allies were voided.

MDR · Oct 9, 2013

AGX you are of course right but they called it war reparation when they voided German and Austrian patents whereas they called it paying back war debts when they more or less took/stole english, french etc... inventions. It's all in the wording. my favourite example is the Bell X2 the first supersonic plane in reality it was a british invention but the British had to hand over the construction plans to the americans. The first time Europe stood up to the US demands was the Concorde France and the UK denied the US wish to receive the construction plans and the rest is as they say is History or more precisely the Concorde and Tupolev are still the only Supersonic Passenger Transport planes.

A Windisch surprise

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